11 ms·

This could be... potentially disastrous for innovation. Patented work includes: * 2018/048934, "Generating Audio using neural networks", Priority date: 6 Sep

by cs702 8y ago

This could be... potentially disastrous for innovation. Patented work includes: * 2018/048934, "Generating Audio using neural networks", Priority date: 6 Sep 2016 * 2018/048945, "Processing sequences using convolutional neural networks", Priority date: 6 Sep 2016 * 2018064591, "Generating video frames using neural networks", Priority date: 6 Sep 2016 * 2018071392, "Neural networks for selecting actions to be performed by a robotic agent", Priority date: 10 Oct 2016 * 2018/081089, "Processing text sequences using neural networks", Priority date: 26 Oct 2016 * 2018/083532, "Training action selection using neural networks", Priority date: 3 Nov 2016 * 2018/083667, "Reinforcement learning systems", Priority date: 4 Nov 2016 * 2018/083668, "Scene understanding and generation using neural networks", Priority date: 4 Nov 2016 * 2018/083669, "Recurrent neural networks", Priority date: 4 Nov 2016 * 2018083670, "Sequence transduction neural networks", Priority date: 4 Nov 2016 * 2018083671, "Reinforcement learning with auxiliary tasks", Priority date: 4 Nov 2016 * 2018/083672, "Environment navigation using reinforcement learning", Priority date: 4 Nov 2016 ... Is there anyone from DeepMind on HN who could comment on this?

ztratar 8y ago
Uhhhhhh. Good lord, I barely have words. I hope they only use these defensively. The world needs these systems without huge royalties.
- kingbirdy 8y ago
  I hope they don't get the patents at all. You shouldn't be tied to DeepMind/Alphabet's goodwill over patents in fields they're clearly not the only ones innovating in.
  - mtgx 8y ago
    Trump's recent USPTO appointed seems like a patent extremist. He recently argued that the USPTO (which he now leads) should not be allowed to call patents invalid after issuing them. He said the Supreme Court was wrong to rule that. And I believe the previous USPTO chief was a former Google employee. So, either way, I think Google will get these, unless some organizations like the EFF start going through the process of attacking these patents.
    - komali2 8y ago
      >He said the Supreme Court was wrong Good thing it's the Supreme Court then, and not the "Maybe do what we say Court." I get a little excited every time some idiot from the current administration tries to take on US rule of law, because I know the slow machinations of the legal system will eventually spank them into orbit over it.
      - fapjacks 8y ago
        As if the people of the United States haven't been signing blank checks to the executive branch for decades, and then just flooring the accelerator after 9/11. Your inability to get past the sideshow face of Trump's administration seems to have caused you to completely forget about, say, the free reign the administration has over its drone assassination program? They literally drop bombs on the phone numbers that Palantir spits out. Or National Security Letters that basically give them the legal machinery to completely and wholly subjugate an entity in any way they wish, with rubber-stamp "judicial approval" from a secret court and zero recourse for the victim, including requiring the victim to lie for the government to cover up its crime? Don't let the bullshit with your favorite color make you lose sight of the absolute power "the slow machinations of the legal system" has been corrupted to allow.
- pishpash 8y ago
  Half of these are already outdated if you consider what happened between 2016 and 2018.
  - godelmachine 8y ago
    I am curious to know what happened between 2016 and 2018 that made them outdated?
    - GolDDranks 8y ago
      The (convolutional) deep learning boom happened.
      - rbkillea 8y ago
        That happened in 2012.
stochastic_monk 8y ago
This is incredibly stupid. Recurrent Neural Networks? Reinforcement Learning Systems? Generating audio with neural networks? These can’t be valid.
- ttul 8y ago
  Look at the claims... devil is in the details.
  - web007 8y ago
    2018071392 has the claims on page 23 of 33. They specify: A DNN trained on simulated input Controlling a "robot" based on actual input That's pretty obviously a "devil".
    - bdowling 8y ago
      Assuming a patent issues with the claims as presented, all of the elements need to be present for there to be infringement. Claim 1 of the application you cited takes up almost an entire page of text and comprises more than a dozen limiting elements, of which you've paraphrased two. If there's a devil here, it's a lot smaller than you're implying it is.
- josaka 8y ago
  They're almost certainly not as broad as the title would suggest. You've got to look at the claims to figure out what the patent apps seek to cover. The title does not define the scope of activity they seek to cover. Usually, it just specifies the field in which they purport to have invented something.
- John_KZ 8y ago
  They can't be, unless Google decides to enforce them. It's not the first time they crowd-source massive amounts of specialized effort, only to steal all the data, close them off and get away with it. Panoramio is the biggest one I know. They essentially stole 10 years worth of effort from a community collecting carefully positioning millions of geo-tagged photos. Then you have Youtube. It's not completely closed off, but you can't query the video database, you can't discover any of the old content, and they "delete" (hide from the public) all issues they consider controversial or against their political beliefs. Now it's possible they used the good old 3Es to stimulate academic research relevant to their targets, use it to create useful products, and then patent everything to choke out the competition. Of course they have better ways to kill competitors (imagine the massive potential for undercutting they have, and how nobody cares about undercutting in the online world).
hnisgroupthink 8y ago
I've been working on several of these publicly since before 2016. Am I immune?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- patentatt 8y ago
  If your work was "described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public" before the patent's priority data, it is available as prior art.[1] That doesn't mean you're immune, per se, but it does mean that nobody can patent exactly what you had made available. [1] http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title35-section102&num=0&edition=prelim http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-...
- automoton1 8y ago
  If so, perhaps it would be within your interest to submit a Preissuance Submission showing prior art to the PTO, like ridgeguy mentioned in a sibling to your comment.
patentatt 8y ago
Remember that patents are not judged based on title alone! You can't even judge based on the claims in these publications because they are in the application phase, these are not issued patents. The claims that may be eventually granted will define the scope of protection afforded by these patent applications.
- bdowling 8y ago
  This can't be emphasized enough. The title of the patent is virtually irrelevant.
  - hugenerd 8y ago
    And the claims in the publication are also likely irrelevant.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
pm90 8y ago
They could likely be defensive patents. In a system where patents are abused by trolls and used as negotiation leverages by corporate lawyers (I'm looking at you, Oracle and IBM), its better to file a patent for everything and never actually sue anyone for using those technologies. Of course this is assuming that Google management does not abuse it themselves.
- drcode 8y ago
  Well, at the end of the day there are only "patents", whether they will be used defensively is anyone's guess.
  - sdenton4 8y ago
    (Or: Rejected patents, which will pile up some good defensive precedent...)
skummetmaelk 8y ago
What's next? Fire and light?
- fixermark 8y ago
  One of the interesting disconnects I see between layperson understanding of patents and legal understanding of patents is how one person's "broad and obvious" is another person's "novel and innovative," and the system does its best to handle that but the tension is forever there. It's illustrative to remember that Thomas Jefferson himself was sued for using a patented Archimedes Screw design on his property, that he was extremely certain he could have fought in court and overturned since the 'novel' technology in question was known to the Greeks... and he paid the patent-holder anyway because he wanted to encourage patent adoption and use. The system has forever had this tension baked in, and we just muddle through generation after generation.
halflings 8y ago
Can't remember a single time Google sued people for patent infringement except for that one time against BT [0] (which was retaliatory anyway). These are purely defensive patents because they know that other companies will be more than happy to sue them for patent infringement. DeepMind (+ other research organizations at Google) are among the biggest publishers of AI papers + open-source AI code. [0] https://www.ft.com/content/ea436a88-762a-11e2-8eb6-00144feabdc0 https://www.ft.com/content/ea436a88-762a-11e2-8eb6-00144feab...
- adammenges 8y ago
  Non pay walled version: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-21458094 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-21458094
- blt 8y ago
  TBH, I would say the ratio of code published to papers published for DeepMind is pretty small. They have generated a lot of non reproducible results.
  - deepnotderp 8y ago
    Yes, small as in almost zero.
  - halflings 8y ago
    Yes, the ratio is pretty low for DeepMind. Higher for Google Brain. Still, DeepMind open-sourced two major frameworks: Sonnet (general DL) [0] and DeepMind Lab (RL environment) [1]. [0] https://deepmind.com/blog/open-sourcing-sonnet/ https://deepmind.com/blog/open-sourcing-sonnet/ [1] https://deepmind.com/blog/open-sourcing-deepmind-lab/ https://deepmind.com/blog/open-sourcing-deepmind-lab/
    - blt 8y ago
      Frameworks != reproducible results. Ideally, they'd release all the code you need to get the results from the DDPG paper. I recognize that the code probably depends on proprietary DeepMind tools, making this not feasible. Still, it sucks.
mtgx 8y ago
Now do people see why it matters that it was Google the one building military drone AI, and not just "Random Company X" working with the Pentagon on this? Google is far far ahead of others in AI, with or without the patents. The patents just ensure they also get to have a legal monopoly on some stuff to ensure that nobody else can catch-up to them in the technology area.
wpennington 8y ago
It's interesting to see Google's AI principles [0,1] published on the same day as these patent applications. Of course, this could be unrelated and complete coincidence. However, this _could_ have been strategic depending on the possible breadth* of what they are trying to claim. (And to be clear, I am not saying this is why they released these principles -- plenty of other reasons for that.) *Note on the applications - I have not reviewed the claim sets so cannot comment specifically on what they are attempting to claim. In any event (and as others have noted, as well) the devil is in the details (e.g, the claims in each application -- more specifically, what is eventually allowed/granted). [0] - Google's (Alphabets?) AI principles - https://www.blog.google/topics/ai/ai-principles/ https://www.blog.google/topics/ai/ai-principles/ [1] - HN discussion on the same - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17259082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17259082 edit - grammar
- dctoedt 8y ago
  > It's interesting to see Google's AI principles [0,1] published on the same day as these patent applications. Of course, this could be unrelated and complete coincidence. However, this _could_ have been strategic depending on the possible breadth of what they are trying to claim. (And to be clear, I am not saying this is why they released these principles -- plenty of other reasons for that.)* It's almost certainly not a coincidence. Patent applications with possible international impact are typically filed before any publication, so as to avoid forfeiting any potential foreign patent rights. [0] Patent attorneys get extremely busy before, e.g., trade shows, new-product announcements, etc. — they want to get applications on file to preserve foreign rights. [0] E.g., https://patentable.com/invention-disclosure-and-patent-grace-periods-how-disclosing-your-invention-before-filing-a-patent-application-can-severely-limit-your-ability-to-obtain-a-patent/ https://patentable.com/invention-disclosure-and-patent-grace...
  - wpennington 8y ago
    Totally, you are 100% correct w.r.t. public disclosures and patent filings -- that you want to get the latter done before the former so as to preserve foreign rights outside of the US. Also, more broadly, so as to preserve any rights at all -- following the America Invents Act (AIA) the US is now in a first to file system (like the majority of the rest of the world), not a first to invent system [0,1]. In this case of Google that we are discussing, however, the patents have already been filed but not yet published -- thus, the public did not/could not know what the patents were. Patents publish some time after filing, often times 18mo after the filing date for the USPTO [1] but this timeline can vary for a number a reasons, e.g. an earlier priority date, etc [2]. That all said, much of the work here by Google has likely been disclosed already, but the existence of the patents and what was in them is generally new info for the public and industry. The referenced AI principles post by Google discussed more about "values" and less about any given tech. That said, my original comment was aimed toward the possible notion of strategic PR (e.g., saying we are going to do 'good' with not just this tech, but also these patents which you are just learning about), not strategic IP (e.g., preserving defensibility for any specific tech). [0] AIA via USPTO - https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/aia_implementation/20110916-pub-l112-29.pdf https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/aia_implementation... [1] TLDR of AIA - http://www.aipla.org/advocacy/congress/aia/Pages/summary.aspx http://www.aipla.org/advocacy/congress/aia/Pages/summary.asp... [2] USPTO on 18mo - https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/news-updates/uspto-will-begin-publishing-patent-applications https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/news-updates/uspto-will-begin... [3] WIPO on PCTs - http://www.wipo.int/pct/en/faqs/faqs.html http://www.wipo.int/pct/en/faqs/faqs.html
eanzenberg 8y ago
It is complete and utter horse shit they are trying to patent things invented decades ago. 2018/081089, "Processing text sequences using neural networks", Priority date: 26 Oct 2016: "In one aspect, a system is configured to receive an input sequence of source embeddings representing a source sequence of words in a source natural language and to generate an output sequence of target embeddings representing a target sequence of words" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_neural_network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_neural_network (look at the reference dates) This is so extremely anti-competitive. There cannot be goodwill and trust between people and corporations. There is no trust.
- drtillberg 8y ago
  From the universal lack of a response on this board of anyone excited to read the patent applications to learn how to get AI to make sounds and such, clearly the US patent system is no longer serving that purpose.
  - smaddox 8y ago
    It hasn't served that purpose in decades...
    - neltnerb 8y ago
      Is it that bad in CS? In my field I'm constantly reading old patents for recipes to solve my problems. But I guess a lot of patents in chemicals are expired comparatively.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
jimbofisher1 8y ago
This is extremely concerning. Processing sequences using CNNs is particularly bad. It covers using CNNs to process ANY sequences, text, audio, video, etc.. Basically covering any potential use for a CNN. This would like a company patenting Welding. It's just so insanely broad.
TaylorAlexander 8y ago
“This could be... potentially disastrous for innovation.” This is how I feel about the patent system in general. I genuinely think parents harm innovation by setting artificial limits on innovation in a misguided attempt to incentivise innovation.
shmed 8y ago
I am not saying people shouldn't be outraged, but please read the actual claims rather than just reading the patent titles. Titles are just a general description of the invention. Inventor don't patent titles, they patent a claim that is described in a long technical patent application. DeepMind is not patenting the general idea of a "recurrent neural network", they just have a claim that can be described as recurrent neural network. In the actual patent documents, they need an actual in depth technical description of a new process or invention that is not covered by any existing publication.
- droidist2 8y ago
  Imagine if we titled academic papers like this, there would be thousands of papers simply titled "Recurrent Neural Network"
ridgeguy 8y ago
These aren't issued patents, they're published applications for patents. When you read these applications, look first at the claims. If you believe any of those shouldn't be granted by the PTO in an issued patent, read the application in detail to learn more about the claim(s) you don't like. Why? Because if you're right (example: claim shouldn't issue because of citeable prior art), you (anyone) can make a Preissuance Submission to the PTO saying why the claim(s) shouldn't be allowed. Here's a real brief view of how P.S works [1]. Really, if you as a person with domain knowledge see a problem with an application, it serves all of us for you to challenge it. I've done this once in an energy storage context. The target application never issued as a patent (and rightfully so). [1] https://www.ipo.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Challengingcompetitorspatentapps.pdf https://www.ipo.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Challengingco...
- fnord123 8y ago
  >Really, if you as a person with domain knowledge see a problem with an application, it serves all of us for you to challenge it. If the PTO wants people to help them with review like this then the triple damages for having read a patent needs to be dropped (by congress). As it stands, corporate policy just about everywhere is that engineers shouldn't read patents.
  - rahkiin 8y ago
    > corporate policy just about everywhere is that engineers shouldn't read patents. I have never heard if this before. Could you elaborate?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - neltnerb 8y ago
      It is the idea that you shouldn't look for prior IP because knowledge of that prior IP makes you liable for triple damages because it's "willful infringement" rather than ignorance or accident. I have heard it before, I think it's ill-advised but I guess if you're 3M you have the legal team to deal with the fallout.

by cs702 8y ago

ztratar 8y ago

Uhhhhhh. Good lord, I barely have words. I hope they only use these defensively. The world needs these systems without huge royalties.

kingbirdy 8y ago
I hope they don't get the patents at all. You shouldn't be tied to DeepMind/Alphabet's goodwill over patents in fields they're clearly not the only ones innovating in.
- mtgx 8y ago
  Trump's recent USPTO appointed seems like a patent extremist. He recently argued that the USPTO (which he now leads) should not be allowed to call patents invalid after issuing them. He said the Supreme Court was wrong to rule that. And I believe the previous USPTO chief was a former Google employee. So, either way, I think Google will get these, unless some organizations like the EFF start going through the process of attacking these patents.
  - komali2 8y ago
    >He said the Supreme Court was wrong Good thing it's the Supreme Court then, and not the "Maybe do what we say Court." I get a little excited every time some idiot from the current administration tries to take on US rule of law, because I know the slow machinations of the legal system will eventually spank them into orbit over it.
    - fapjacks 8y ago
      As if the people of the United States haven't been signing blank checks to the executive branch for decades, and then just flooring the accelerator after 9/11. Your inability to get past the sideshow face of Trump's administration seems to have caused you to completely forget about, say, the free reign the administration has over its drone assassination program? They literally drop bombs on the phone numbers that Palantir spits out. Or National Security Letters that basically give them the legal machinery to completely and wholly subjugate an entity in any way they wish, with rubber-stamp "judicial approval" from a secret court and zero recourse for the victim, including requiring the victim to lie for the government to cover up its crime? Don't let the bullshit with your favorite color make you lose sight of the absolute power "the slow machinations of the legal system" has been corrupted to allow.
pishpash 8y ago
Half of these are already outdated if you consider what happened between 2016 and 2018.
- godelmachine 8y ago
  I am curious to know what happened between 2016 and 2018 that made them outdated?
  - GolDDranks 8y ago
    The (convolutional) deep learning boom happened.
    - rbkillea 8y ago
      That happened in 2012.

stochastic_monk 8y ago

This is incredibly stupid. Recurrent Neural Networks? Reinforcement Learning Systems? Generating audio with neural networks? These can’t be valid.

ttul 8y ago
Look at the claims... devil is in the details.
- web007 8y ago
  2018071392 has the claims on page 23 of 33. They specify: A DNN trained on simulated input Controlling a "robot" based on actual input That's pretty obviously a "devil".
  - bdowling 8y ago
    Assuming a patent issues with the claims as presented, all of the elements need to be present for there to be infringement. Claim 1 of the application you cited takes up almost an entire page of text and comprises more than a dozen limiting elements, of which you've paraphrased two. If there's a devil here, it's a lot smaller than you're implying it is.
josaka 8y ago
They're almost certainly not as broad as the title would suggest. You've got to look at the claims to figure out what the patent apps seek to cover. The title does not define the scope of activity they seek to cover. Usually, it just specifies the field in which they purport to have invented something.
John_KZ 8y ago
They can't be, unless Google decides to enforce them. It's not the first time they crowd-source massive amounts of specialized effort, only to steal all the data, close them off and get away with it. Panoramio is the biggest one I know. They essentially stole 10 years worth of effort from a community collecting carefully positioning millions of geo-tagged photos. Then you have Youtube. It's not completely closed off, but you can't query the video database, you can't discover any of the old content, and they "delete" (hide from the public) all issues they consider controversial or against their political beliefs. Now it's possible they used the good old 3Es to stimulate academic research relevant to their targets, use it to create useful products, and then patent everything to choke out the competition. Of course they have better ways to kill competitors (imagine the massive potential for undercutting they have, and how nobody cares about undercutting in the online world).

hnisgroupthink 8y ago

I've been working on several of these publicly since before 2016. Am I immune?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
patentatt 8y ago
If your work was "described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public" before the patent's priority data, it is available as prior art.[1] That doesn't mean you're immune, per se, but it does mean that nobody can patent exactly what you had made available. [1] http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title35-section102&num=0&edition=prelim http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-...
automoton1 8y ago
If so, perhaps it would be within your interest to submit a Preissuance Submission showing prior art to the PTO, like ridgeguy mentioned in a sibling to your comment.

patentatt 8y ago

Remember that patents are not judged based on title alone! You can't even judge based on the claims in these publications because they are in the application phase, these are not issued patents. The claims that may be eventually granted will define the scope of protection afforded by these patent applications.

bdowling 8y ago
This can't be emphasized enough. The title of the patent is virtually irrelevant.
- hugenerd 8y ago
  And the claims in the publication are also likely irrelevant.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

pm90 8y ago

They could likely be defensive patents. In a system where patents are abused by trolls and used as negotiation leverages by corporate lawyers (I'm looking at you, Oracle and IBM), its better to file a patent for everything and never actually sue anyone for using those technologies. Of course this is assuming that Google management does not abuse it themselves.

drcode 8y ago
Well, at the end of the day there are only "patents", whether they will be used defensively is anyone's guess.
- sdenton4 8y ago
  (Or: Rejected patents, which will pile up some good defensive precedent...)

skummetmaelk 8y ago

What's next? Fire and light?

fixermark 8y ago
One of the interesting disconnects I see between layperson understanding of patents and legal understanding of patents is how one person's "broad and obvious" is another person's "novel and innovative," and the system does its best to handle that but the tension is forever there. It's illustrative to remember that Thomas Jefferson himself was sued for using a patented Archimedes Screw design on his property, that he was extremely certain he could have fought in court and overturned since the 'novel' technology in question was known to the Greeks... and he paid the patent-holder anyway because he wanted to encourage patent adoption and use. The system has forever had this tension baked in, and we just muddle through generation after generation.

halflings 8y ago

Can't remember a single time Google sued people for patent infringement except for that one time against BT [0] (which was retaliatory anyway). These are purely defensive patents because they know that other companies will be more than happy to sue them for patent infringement. DeepMind (+ other research organizations at Google) are among the biggest publishers of AI papers + open-source AI code. [0] https://www.ft.com/content/ea436a88-762a-11e2-8eb6-00144feabdc0 https://www.ft.com/content/ea436a88-762a-11e2-8eb6-00144feab...

adammenges 8y ago
Non pay walled version: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-21458094 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-21458094
blt 8y ago
TBH, I would say the ratio of code published to papers published for DeepMind is pretty small. They have generated a lot of non reproducible results.
- deepnotderp 8y ago
  Yes, small as in almost zero.
- halflings 8y ago
  Yes, the ratio is pretty low for DeepMind. Higher for Google Brain. Still, DeepMind open-sourced two major frameworks: Sonnet (general DL) [0] and DeepMind Lab (RL environment) [1]. [0] https://deepmind.com/blog/open-sourcing-sonnet/ https://deepmind.com/blog/open-sourcing-sonnet/ [1] https://deepmind.com/blog/open-sourcing-deepmind-lab/ https://deepmind.com/blog/open-sourcing-deepmind-lab/
  - blt 8y ago
    Frameworks != reproducible results. Ideally, they'd release all the code you need to get the results from the DDPG paper. I recognize that the code probably depends on proprietary DeepMind tools, making this not feasible. Still, it sucks.

mtgx 8y ago

Now do people see why it matters that it was Google the one building military drone AI, and not just "Random Company X" working with the Pentagon on this? Google is far far ahead of others in AI, with or without the patents. The patents just ensure they also get to have a legal monopoly on some stuff to ensure that nobody else can catch-up to them in the technology area.

wpennington 8y ago

It's interesting to see Google's AI principles [0,1] published on the same day as these patent applications. Of course, this could be unrelated and complete coincidence. However, this _could_ have been strategic depending on the possible breadth* of what they are trying to claim. (And to be clear, I am not saying this is why they released these principles -- plenty of other reasons for that.) *Note on the applications - I have not reviewed the claim sets so cannot comment specifically on what they are attempting to claim. In any event (and as others have noted, as well) the devil is in the details (e.g, the claims in each application -- more specifically, what is eventually allowed/granted). [0] - Google's (Alphabets?) AI principles - https://www.blog.google/topics/ai/ai-principles/ https://www.blog.google/topics/ai/ai-principles/ [1] - HN discussion on the same - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17259082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17259082 edit - grammar

dctoedt 8y ago
> It's interesting to see Google's AI principles [0,1] published on the same day as these patent applications. Of course, this could be unrelated and complete coincidence. However, this _could_ have been strategic depending on the possible breadth of what they are trying to claim. (And to be clear, I am not saying this is why they released these principles -- plenty of other reasons for that.)* It's almost certainly not a coincidence. Patent applications with possible international impact are typically filed before any publication, so as to avoid forfeiting any potential foreign patent rights. [0] Patent attorneys get extremely busy before, e.g., trade shows, new-product announcements, etc. — they want to get applications on file to preserve foreign rights. [0] E.g., https://patentable.com/invention-disclosure-and-patent-grace-periods-how-disclosing-your-invention-before-filing-a-patent-application-can-severely-limit-your-ability-to-obtain-a-patent/ https://patentable.com/invention-disclosure-and-patent-grace...
- wpennington 8y ago
  Totally, you are 100% correct w.r.t. public disclosures and patent filings -- that you want to get the latter done before the former so as to preserve foreign rights outside of the US. Also, more broadly, so as to preserve any rights at all -- following the America Invents Act (AIA) the US is now in a first to file system (like the majority of the rest of the world), not a first to invent system [0,1]. In this case of Google that we are discussing, however, the patents have already been filed but not yet published -- thus, the public did not/could not know what the patents were. Patents publish some time after filing, often times 18mo after the filing date for the USPTO [1] but this timeline can vary for a number a reasons, e.g. an earlier priority date, etc [2]. That all said, much of the work here by Google has likely been disclosed already, but the existence of the patents and what was in them is generally new info for the public and industry. The referenced AI principles post by Google discussed more about "values" and less about any given tech. That said, my original comment was aimed toward the possible notion of strategic PR (e.g., saying we are going to do 'good' with not just this tech, but also these patents which you are just learning about), not strategic IP (e.g., preserving defensibility for any specific tech). [0] AIA via USPTO - https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/aia_implementation/20110916-pub-l112-29.pdf https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/aia_implementation... [1] TLDR of AIA - http://www.aipla.org/advocacy/congress/aia/Pages/summary.aspx http://www.aipla.org/advocacy/congress/aia/Pages/summary.asp... [2] USPTO on 18mo - https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/news-updates/uspto-will-begin-publishing-patent-applications https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/news-updates/uspto-will-begin... [3] WIPO on PCTs - http://www.wipo.int/pct/en/faqs/faqs.html http://www.wipo.int/pct/en/faqs/faqs.html

eanzenberg 8y ago

It is complete and utter horse shit they are trying to patent things invented decades ago. 2018/081089, "Processing text sequences using neural networks", Priority date: 26 Oct 2016: "In one aspect, a system is configured to receive an input sequence of source embeddings representing a source sequence of words in a source natural language and to generate an output sequence of target embeddings representing a target sequence of words" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_neural_network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_neural_network (look at the reference dates) This is so extremely anti-competitive. There cannot be goodwill and trust between people and corporations. There is no trust.

drtillberg 8y ago
From the universal lack of a response on this board of anyone excited to read the patent applications to learn how to get AI to make sounds and such, clearly the US patent system is no longer serving that purpose.
- smaddox 8y ago
  It hasn't served that purpose in decades...
  - neltnerb 8y ago
    Is it that bad in CS? In my field I'm constantly reading old patents for recipes to solve my problems. But I guess a lot of patents in chemicals are expired comparatively.
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jimbofisher1 8y ago

This is extremely concerning. Processing sequences using CNNs is particularly bad. It covers using CNNs to process ANY sequences, text, audio, video, etc.. Basically covering any potential use for a CNN. This would like a company patenting Welding. It's just so insanely broad.

TaylorAlexander 8y ago

“This could be... potentially disastrous for innovation.” This is how I feel about the patent system in general. I genuinely think parents harm innovation by setting artificial limits on innovation in a misguided attempt to incentivise innovation.

shmed 8y ago

I am not saying people shouldn't be outraged, but please read the actual claims rather than just reading the patent titles. Titles are just a general description of the invention. Inventor don't patent titles, they patent a claim that is described in a long technical patent application. DeepMind is not patenting the general idea of a "recurrent neural network", they just have a claim that can be described as recurrent neural network. In the actual patent documents, they need an actual in depth technical description of a new process or invention that is not covered by any existing publication.

droidist2 8y ago
Imagine if we titled academic papers like this, there would be thousands of papers simply titled "Recurrent Neural Network"

ridgeguy 8y ago

These aren't issued patents, they're published applications for patents. When you read these applications, look first at the claims. If you believe any of those shouldn't be granted by the PTO in an issued patent, read the application in detail to learn more about the claim(s) you don't like. Why? Because if you're right (example: claim shouldn't issue because of citeable prior art), you (anyone) can make a Preissuance Submission to the PTO saying why the claim(s) shouldn't be allowed. Here's a real brief view of how P.S works [1]. Really, if you as a person with domain knowledge see a problem with an application, it serves all of us for you to challenge it. I've done this once in an energy storage context. The target application never issued as a patent (and rightfully so). [1] https://www.ipo.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Challengingcompetitorspatentapps.pdf https://www.ipo.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Challengingco...

fnord123 8y ago
>Really, if you as a person with domain knowledge see a problem with an application, it serves all of us for you to challenge it. If the PTO wants people to help them with review like this then the triple damages for having read a patent needs to be dropped (by congress). As it stands, corporate policy just about everywhere is that engineers shouldn't read patents.
- rahkiin 8y ago
  > corporate policy just about everywhere is that engineers shouldn't read patents. I have never heard if this before. Could you elaborate?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - neltnerb 8y ago
    It is the idea that you shouldn't look for prior IP because knowledge of that prior IP makes you liable for triple damages because it's "willful infringement" rather than ignorance or accident. I have heard it before, I think it's ill-advised but I guess if you're 3M you have the legal team to deal with the fallout.